Friday Quote Day

"Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that
you want."
~ Jim Rohn

Testing, testing. The Blogger page won't load so I'm going to try out
this new-fangled blog-by-e-mail option and see how it works. I *know*
it won't look right, but looks aren't everything, right?

Definitely right! This week's quote says it all.

If I'm happy with what I have – and I am – I'm free to work for
anything and everything I want. If I get it, great. But if I'm already
happy with what I have, it's not going to break my heart to not get
what I'm working for.

This kind of goes against the Puritan work-ethic grain. We think we
should achieve *all* our goals, especially the ones we're working our
asses off for. (Or should that be "especially the ones for which we're
working our asses off"?) It's not bad to want more, but if the
starting point is one of "okay-ness," then not having more isn't a
tragedy.

My physical needs are more than met, as are my emotional ones. I'm on
a continuing and rewarding spiritual quest. What's left?

Those pesky extra pounds, that's what. Accepting the current state of
my body is my biggest hurdle, particularly when I still remember being
thinner, running up hills, lifting heavy pieces of furniture, doing
just about whatever I wanted to do, physically. I'm limited by these
pounds and it's frustrating to be working so hard and seeing so little
reward.

But. But, but, but. Defining success as pounds lost isn't helpful. If
anyone can teach me to learn to be happy with what I have, I'm all ears.

Have a good weekend and a good next week. I'll have internet access,
but I kind of enjoy taking a technology break when I'm not at home, so
I don't know if I'll be checking in or not. Stay tuned! Oh, and if
you're so inclined, call your Congressional representative and ask him/
her to support single-payer health reform.

Real food for real people

So, my husband and I went to the movies yesterday. We like documentaries, and the nearest theatre which regularly features them is two hours away. Going to the movies is a day trip for us.

We saw Food, Inc., and decided on the way home we might become vegetarians. At the very least, we will seek out family farm-raised chicken, beef and pork. Turns out one of the farmers interviewed in the film is two, maybe two and a half hours from us, and sells his products to the public almost every Saturday.

So buying meat will be a day trip, as well.

At the very end of the film there were many suggestions flashed up randomly on the screen, ideas you can use to eat better. One was "Plant a garden. (Even a small one.)" My husband nudged me; he knows how much my garden means to me.

We have friends who are about as self-sustaining as you can get and not be Amish. We called them on our way home and invited ourselves to dinner. For the rest of our lives! Heh.

Interestingly, Time magazine published an article on the comeback of "real food," a response to consumers who were withdrawing from manufactured food. The article appeared October 12, 1987. Here we are, 22 years later, singing the same old song. Amazing.

It's kind of like health care reform, isn't it? Harry Truman wanted to implement an improved health care delivery system in the '40s. And here we are, 60 years later and much more deeply entrenched in the illness-for-profit game insurers love to play. In spite of my President's press conference last night, I have little hope for true reform as long as insurance companies continue to be a part of the mix. They're rushing to raise their premiums now, before reform passes.

Did anyone else notice that the phraseology was changed from "health care reform" to "health insurance reform?" That, at least, is more honest about what needs to be done. Actually, single payer is what needs to be done, but no one with any kind of power seems to be listening to us.

Some knitting news! I cast on for a sweater for me a couple days ago. The new issue of Knit Simple featured a lovely, comfortable cardigan that looked like just the kind of easy knitting I can handle right now. You can see it in the "9 to 5" preview; it's the fourth one in the row, bright red. I'm doing mine in periwinkle blue.

And I'm still walking. I refused to weigh myself this morning. If I'm walking for the sake of walking, I can't let the scale discourage me in any way whatsoever. I can't boycott it completely, but I think I'll wait until I get back from visiting my dad to check my weight again. That may or may not be a mistake.

My dad's a very good cook. Heh.

Grrr. Grrr. Grrr.

My e-mail is still broken. My ISP says it's the phone line. Verizon promised to come Monday but they still haven't shown up and I'm busier than usual and getting to the point where I Just. Don't. Care. I'm nearly ready to publish my phone number. If you want to know what's going on with me, give me a call!

I'm continuing my five-mile-a-day walking and continuing to see the number on the bathroom scale climb. Two more pounds Monday. TWO! I swear to you on my mother's grave that I'm not overeating and that I'm really exerting myself on these walks. I come home drenched in sweat. I take an Aleve morning and night to ward off muscle aches and pains. Remind me again why I'm doing this?

The bright spot in my life these days is my garden. I decided it's never too late to start a compost pile. Mowing the lawn has turned into mowing with a purpose: I raked four wheelbarrows full of grass clippings. As my dad says, cow manure started out as grass clippings, so it's the best "green" to use in a compost pile.

The other bright spot is that in three days I'll be heading south to visit my dad. I can turn this computer off and hope it magically fixes itself while I'm gone. I can take advantage of his high-speed access to look at YouTube videos and live streaming broadcasts and slow-loading flickr accounts. Be still my heart. Heh.

Time to walk … we've had some lovely cool weather lately, but both temperatures and humidity are creeping back up to summertime normals, so the earlier I get out there, the better I'll feel when I'm done.

67.7

Beginning July 7, I've walked a minimum of five miles every single day, bring the total up to 67.7 miles. I'll be walking between the raindrops today (as I also did on Friday), but ya know what? I won't melt. And walking outside – even in the rain – is better than walking on the treadmill.

Will I run again? I'm not sure. I might need to change the name of the blog. I think if I lost 20 pounds I'd feel better about running and certainly if I lost 40 I'd be right back at it. I'm a little concerned that pounding the road at 5 mph would affect my knees a little more than it does at 3.5 mph.

So. No fall race for me. My husband and I are thinking about going to Florida in January, maybe I'll find one there. Then again, maybe not. It's all contingent on my weight.

Now the good thing is I'm enjoying the walking whether I'm losing weight or not, and that was my goal. I wouldn't be lying if I told you I wish 67.7 miles had resulted in a couple pounds gone. But it hasn't, and that's – as Stuart Smiley would say – okay.

Friday Quote Day

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear.
Action breeds confidence and courage.
If you want to conquer fear,
do not sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy.”
~ Dale Carnegie

Whether I'm losing weight or not (I'm not), my daily walks are definitely beneficial to my mental health. I'm not surprised by this – certainly many of us have read about and/or experienced the emotional lift we get when we exert ourselves physically.

Sitting around thinking about how fat I am won't help me lose weight. And even though logging all these miles (52.2 since July 7) hasn't resulted in a loss (are you surprised, Marla? Me, neither!), I'm not going to stop walking.

I don't feel defeated, not at all. Astonishingly, I look forward to the walk each and every morning. It's the first thing I think about. As I mentioned yesterday I had to get it done early because the rest of the day was packed. The phone rang about five minutes after I finished yesterday – it was the doctor's office needing to reschedule my appointment. I thought about turning right around and taking another walk!

Then I came to my senses and did the errands I'd intended to do after I finished the doctor's appointment.

The point of today's blather – and today's quote – is that doing something is better than not doing something. If you're just starting a walking program, doing a little is better than doing a lot. I don't recommend trying to walk five miles if you've only been thinking about walking. Start small and slow, give yourself a chance for success, and define success.

The smart thing I did this time around was to not make the daily walk contingent on weight loss. The daily walk is, simply, a daily walk, something I enjoy, and a good way to start my day.

I was wrong

My e-mail still is not fixed. My next move is to call the phone company. My ISP is more than willing to help, but now I can't get a dial tone on the line we usually use for the computer. So I'm doing computer stuff in the wee hours of the morning when civilized people don't make telephone calls. Heh.

Today I will be walking in the wee hours of the morning … I have a doctor's appointment at 10:30 and we have plans to visit some friends from mid-afternoon to evening. If my intention is to get five miles in every day, than now is the time.

It really doesn't matter much which phone line I'm using. I can open some web pages, but not others. I can send mail, but it's slow, and sometimes I can even send an attachment. It's not consistent and working with a techie over the phone is frustrating and tiresome.

I walked 10K with my husband yesterday. Instead of five hilly miles on our road, we went to his favorite spot, a flat, shady road that runs by a little creek. It's a lovely walk. When we finished, I picked about a quart of wild berries and now I have enough for another cobbler. Probably enough for a pie, actually.

My next knitting project will be this hat for my older granddaughter who love-love-loves all things Harry Potter. She was Hermione for Halloween the year the first book was published, and her enthusiasm hasn't waned in the ensuing years.

Gotta run. Er, walk. Have a great Thursday.

Oh, what a night

Last night was just about perfect.

We had a wonderful vegetarian meal for dinner, easy, delicious and I got to cook one of my zucchini!

Then we settled down to watch the All-Star game.

I was sitting with my favorite person (my husband), watching my President meet my favorite baseball player.

The first commercial was the Pepsi ad with still shots of my favorite singer and Will.I.Am singing one of my most favorite songs.

And then the American League won the game! Again! How perfect is that?

Walked five miles yesterday (with a little running), and am now getting ready to do today's five-miler. Today will be eight straight days ... they say 21 days makes something a habit. I hope I can make that happen.

Hope your day is as good as my night was!